What are Indigenous research methods?
Indigenous research methods are approaches that bridge, weave, braid or interplay the relationship between Indigenous and western knowledge systems. Shawn Wilson asserts, "Indigenous research methodology means talking about relational accountability. As a researcher you are answering to all your relations when you are doing research.” (From What is an Indigenous Research Methodology? In Canadian Journal of Native Education, 2001, p. 177). Linda Tuhiwai Smith is concerned “not so much with the actual technique of selecting a method but much more with the context in which research problems are conceptualized and designed, and with the implications of research for its participants and their communities.” (From Decolonizing methodologies: research and Indigenous peoples. 2nd edition, 2012, p. ix).
Some examples of Indigenous research methods within natural science spaces include the Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall’s concept of Etuaptmumk (Two-Eyed Seeing), the Maori concept of He Wake Taurua (Double-Canoe), Secwépemc Elder Ronald E. Ignace’s framework of ‘walking on two legs’, and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s ‘Braiding sweetgrass’. Regardless of the methodology used, Indigenous research methods are important because they shift the power of research into the hands of Indigenous people by centering Indigenous ways of interpreting the world.
Indigenous research methods are approaches that bridge, weave, braid or interplay the relationship between Indigenous and western knowledge systems. Shawn Wilson asserts, "Indigenous research methodology means talking about relational accountability. As a researcher you are answering to all your relations when you are doing research.” (From What is an Indigenous Research Methodology? In Canadian Journal of Native Education, 2001, p. 177). Linda Tuhiwai Smith is concerned “not so much with the actual technique of selecting a method but much more with the context in which research problems are conceptualized and designed, and with the implications of research for its participants and their communities.” (From Decolonizing methodologies: research and Indigenous peoples. 2nd edition, 2012, p. ix).
Some examples of Indigenous research methods within natural science spaces include the Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall’s concept of Etuaptmumk (Two-Eyed Seeing), the Maori concept of He Wake Taurua (Double-Canoe), Secwépemc Elder Ronald E. Ignace’s framework of ‘walking on two legs’, and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s ‘Braiding sweetgrass’. Regardless of the methodology used, Indigenous research methods are important because they shift the power of research into the hands of Indigenous people by centering Indigenous ways of interpreting the world.
